Godfather 2 Review
Article written by -K on 5/10/09
Last edited on 5/10/09
Yeah, I have to admit that I enjoyed the first Godfather game. The gameplay wasn’t anything special, the graphics blew balls and it pretty much raped the Godfather license… but you could choke women and smash people’s faces into all kinds of objects! Personal gore fetishes aside; I really wished the developers had incorporated more strategy elements into their game, that would’ve made it a decent mobster game which forced you to think like a don. And then part two came along.
For all you sickos like me out there: yes, you can still choke women and beat the crap out of people with EA’s BlackHand™©®-system. It’s still a crappy looking third person free roaming game wherein you walk around and take out rival mob families. You do this by entering a store or ‘racket’ of some kind, shoot the enemy thugs and threaten the shizzle out of some poor schmuck so they’ll pay you protection money each day. That’s pretty much The Godfather 2 for you, right there.
So what makes this installment better than the last? Well, next to the fact that there are three (smaller) cities this time around, you can also hire crewmembers and make them part of your family. These crewmembers have specialties that you’ll need for certain tasks, like bombing the buildings or cracking safes in stores and banks. You can upgrade your men and have them follow you around all the time, or you can send them off whenever some assholes are trying to take over one of your businesses and it’ll all happen, real time.
That’s right, you’re not the only one that’s having a go at it, the other families constantly try to gain control as well. And you can either send your men to defend your turf or you can drive over yourself and fight. If your men die trying, they won’t be available for a couple of minutes and you’ll be vulnerable for more attacks, if they succeed it’s the other way around. But you’ll want to control all the buildings since owning all rackets of one kind gives you a bonus. Having all the chop shops gives you armored cars and things like that.
While this all sounds like quite a strategic game, it simply isn’t. The developers want you to think like a don but the game doesn’t punish me for thinking like the goddamn bastard that I am. Here’s what I do: I take a look at the 3D map that shows me all the rackets I can take over, I pick a brothel nearby and drive towards it (the driving is as annoying as fucking a bag of razorblades, but never mind that). I enter the building, flirt with a hooker who rejects me so I pimp smack her ass and throw her off a ledge, then kill all non-Corleones, take over the joint and pat myself on the back. After this I pick the next location and repeat the redundantly violent process.
Still I found myself entertained by this process, mind numbing as it may be. After a couple of hours I figured it out. I was kicking ass all the fucking time. My three henchmen called me ‘boss’ and always did as I told them to, anyone that opposed me was sure to die by an agonizing execution move that I would pull off (like sticking the barrel of my Tommy Gun into the back of their throat) and the 3D map of the city displayed my total pwnage by showing me all the businesses I owned. I mean, you can execute someone by jamming a baseball bat into their mouth and slamming it on the ground, forcing the sporting device into places it’s not supposed to go. If that isn’t the definition of kicking ass, then what is?
But all in all, this isn’t a great improvement on the first, though it is entertaining for an hour or ten. You’ll be kicking ass and taking names in no time. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to be a bit of a megalomaniac like I am, and don’t forget the bloodthirsty craving of a stark raving mad serial rapist who just got released after a twelve year sentence. So if you meet those two conditions… congratulations, you’re as much of an antisocial, psychopathic motherfucker as I am.
Review Summary
The don’s view is clear. Each mob family is represented by a color, each type of building has its own logo.
Not that good. Animation is a bit stiff, models lack polygons. Explosions look pretty damn good though.
Weapons sound like they should, and there’s this one jazzy track that kicks ass, which totally took me by surprise.
The killing is awesome, and that’s a good thing seeing as you’re doing nothing else in the entire game.
Non-existent. You’ll be owning all three cities within ten to twelve hours and that’s pretty much the end of it.
55/100
$30
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